The body of the deceased was found by tourists in 1977 — near the Appalachian mountain peak (hence the name of the mysterious «find»). At the time, the authorities stated that there were no signs of foul play, and the cause of death was a drug overdose.
They could not identify the «Pinnacle Man» by his appearance, so they collected dental data and fingerprints (the latter were strangely lost, leaving researchers with only a basic sketch).
«For the past 15 years, detectives have been comparing the data of the Top Man with information on at least 10 missing persons,» John Fielding, the Berks County coroner, told reporters last week.
Investigators revisited the case periodically, but the man’s identity remained a mystery until now. Finally, this week, Berks County, Pennsylvania, police identified the frozen man as 27-year-old Nicholas Port Grubb of Fort Washington.
His body was re-exhumed in 2019 after dental records linked Grubb to two missing persons in Illinois and Florida. Forensic scientists re-took DNA samples to update the information in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NaMus) — but the data still did not match any person in the registry.
In August 2024, Pennsylvania state police officer Ian Keck accidentally came across a previously lost fingerprint card of «Pinnacle Man» — and received a notification of a match from NaMus within an hour
«It’s sad. For more than 40 years, his family has been looking for him, not knowing what happened to him,», — says Keck.
It turned out that Grubb was a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard in the early 1970s, and two years before his death, «had interacted with the police, which is why his fingerprints remained in the system.
The police have already contacted his relatives, but they have not yet commented.
The strangest thing about this story is that when Grubb was found frozen on the summit, where he had no hiking gear or food, was wearing light clothing, and was probably trying to start a fire. It is still unknown how he got into the snow cave — police have now resumed investigating the circumstances of his death.
Source: Guardian
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